


The Vacuum of Doom

by Moonlitdark



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28451880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlitdark/pseuds/Moonlitdark
Summary: It would appear that Harry was having a meltdown over the vacuuming. Draco wasn’t convinced.  His Harry didn’t usually get this worked up over trivial household chores; this level of upset indicated something else was wrong.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	The Vacuum of Doom

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted a long time ago on Livejournal. So if it seems familiar, you've probably read it before.

Draco shuffled a little lower in his seat, curling his legs underneath him. Another thump shook his perch, but he held on tight, raising the newspaper to hide his face. Luckily, burrowing lower into the corner of the couch saved him from connecting with the extension cable which whipped over his head, narrowly missing his ear.

“Harry,” he sighed, the dream of a quiet Sunday afternoon fading, “is there a problem?” 

“There wouldn't be if you'd lower yourself to actually _help_ for a change,” Harry growled, giving the couch an extra whack on the way past, clearly for good measure. Growling outside of the bedroom was never a good sign.

And besides, Draco felt that he had been very reasonable in regard to that subject. “I _offered_ to help.” 

Harry stopped a few feet away, vacuum handle in one hand and red feather duster in the other. “Oh, did I miss that?” 

“I said I'd get us a house elf to do the cleaning.” 

“Yeah, ‘cos Hermione would _love_ that,” snarled Harry. Snarling wasn’t a much better portent than growling.

“Or a maid,” Draco suggested. “That'd be an acceptable Muggle thing. She couldn't object to that, surely?” 

“ _I'd_ object.” 

“Why? It doesn't make any sense for us to do manual labour when there are plenty of people we could hire to do it for us.”

Harry pulled a nozzle from its slot on the side of the appliance. “We should do it ourselves.” 

“But we don't need to.”

“I'd rather we did, that's all.” 

A spell could quickly and easily accomplish this task, but Draco knew better than to even utter that suggestion. Harry liked to do certain everyday jobs the hard way, but the line had to be drawn somewhere. “Well, I refuse. It's unnecessary.”

“You're being a brat again.”

“I am _never_ a ‘brat’.” 

Draco’s eyes tracked the arc of the long nozzle as Harry gesticulated angrily. He moved a few inches back for safety as it swished unnervingly near to his nose. 

“I apologise,” Harry announced with sarcasm. “You're eternally the perfect example of unselfish reasoning and logic.” 

“That's right.” Oops. He was supposed to be calming Harry down, not spurring him on. The nozzle swished again, very close. Harry’s eyes glinted, becoming wider, and Draco was suddenly afraid that he was about to have a section of vacuum cleaner thrown at his head. 

But Harry's voice emerged calm, if not amused. “So, you're not going to help me?”

“The place already looks immaculate. There's nothing else to do.” 

“Want me to make you a list?”

“You wouldn't dare.” 

“No?” 

“Make the list,” Draco huffed, abandoning his efforts and his newspaper and extracting himself from the couch, careful to leave a wide berth between his delicate flesh and his snarky boyfriend’s swinging range. “I'm going to brew some coffee.” 

“But Ron and Hermione are gonna be here in a few hours!” Harry yelled after him.

“Eight hours, Harry. And they can take us as they find us,” he announced from the safety of the kitchen. “Or you can hire a maid.”

“But that's just _it_. I don't want to give money to strangers so that they can traipse through our house and then rush back to tell all their pals about Harry Potter's standards of cleanliness! The whole idea is doomed to be a _fucking disaster_!” 

“That's a little paranoid. I hardly think that -” The sound of a loud clunk that Draco suspected was a cleaning accessory being hurled to the ground interrupted him. Wary, he risked poking his head around the door frame to gauge the damage. 

Sure enough, the nozzle lay a few feet away from a fuming Harry, who still had a firm grip of the feather duster. Draco imagined that the sturdy plastic handle could probably be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. 

“A Slytherin's calling _me_ paranoid?” 

“Yes,” Draco acknowledged, disinclined to leave the safety of the kitchen in the midst of this unusually frightening behaviour.

“The Prophet thrives on printing rubbish, imagine what they'd say if they actually had hard facts! If someone was cleaning and doing our washing - the personal information they could gather!” 

“I wouldn't exactly describe the alleged colour of your undies as 'hard facts'.” 

“But it wouldn't be alleged, would it? It'd be _true_!” 

It was time to emerge from the kitchen before he was dragged out. Abandoning the coffee that he wasn’t making, Draco approached, armed only with caution and a soothing tone. “Harry, you need to breathe. Really, it's just the vacuuming.” He eyed the duster nervously. “If you were a woman, I'd think it was your hormones,” he muttered as he made contact, plucking the weapon from Harry’s clutches and gently steering him to take Draco’s previous place on the couch.

“It’s _not_ my hormones!”

“I should think not,” Draco agreed, crouching in front of Harry. Not kneeling, because it would be more difficult to retreat from a kneeling position in case of an emergency. 

“But what's wrong with you? You're not usually this... wound up.” 

“I'm _NOT wound UP_!” Harry paused before his next screech, visibly restraining himself. “Okay, maybe I am just a bit.” 

Placing his hands on Harry’s knees, Draco’s thumbs traced comforting circles. “You've bustled around this house for days, getting everything so perfect and clean. Anyone would think that you're nesting or something.” Draco stopped to consider his last statement. “You're not, are you?”

The creasing of Harry’s brow was enormously worrying. “What would you say if I was?”

“I'd... umm... be supportive?”

“Really?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Would that be before or after you remembered that men can't have babies?” 

Draco's felt the temperature of his cheeks rise. “Oh, yeah... but there was that one, once,” he muttered.

“There was?”

“Yup. The bloke gave birth and everything.”

“That’s just too weird.” 

Relieved to have succeeded in a brief distraction, Draco nonetheless ventured back to the hazardous topic. 

“So, what's up then? I mean, if we've ruled out the nesting thing?” 

A small shrug with the absence of eye contact preceded a murmur. “I just want the place to look nice.”

Draco wasn’t convinced. His Harry didn’t usually get this worked up over trivial household chores; this level of upset indicated something else was wrong. “Come on, tell me.” He took Harry’s hand in his, brought it up to his chin for an encouraging caress.

“You… know what Hermione’s like. I don’t want her to think that we can’t… manage.”

“Manage what?”

“The house… you know, stuff.”

“We’re two grown adults, it doesn’t take much managing. What is it, really?”

“It’s just… she doesn’t…”

Harry still wasn’t looking at him. Understanding clicked into place. “…like me?”

“Yeah,” Harry whispered.

“I know that.”

“She’ll… look for things. Anything to criticise. I know she will.” 

“No, she won’t.”

“But -”

“She might despise the ground I walk on, but she loves you.”

Harry’s indignant gape was adorable. “No, she _doesn’t_! She would _never_ -”

“Not like _that_ ,” chuckled Draco. “She’s your friend. She’s happy for you. Even if you _are_ with me,” he smirked. “But I’m perfect. I’ll win her ‘round.”

“Will you?”

“How could she resist?”

“She seems to have been resisting just fine, so far.” 

“That’s only because I haven’t really been trying. Just you wait. She’ll grow to love me.” The tilt of Harry’s head appeared to denote misgivings. “Okay, maybe not love. But eventually the urge to kill me will wear off,” Draco assured.

“Eventually?”

“Unquestionably,” Draco nodded fervently, leaning forward to peck a kiss to Harry’s tense lips.

“We’ll see,” Harry sighed. But a smile was there now, if a little hesitant. Draco could do better than that.

“You’ll be amazed. But if in doubt, you can always threaten her with the vacuum cleaner. She won’t stand a chance.”

Harry’s sudden, infectious laugh rang out, loud and heartening.


End file.
